


Careful What You Wish For

by lettalady



Series: WISH [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Marvel Universe, The Avengers (2012) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettalady/pseuds/lettalady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your SHIELD training prepared you for so much. Assault on a compound? Check. Disassembling and reassembling your service piece in less than a minute without having to watch what you're doing? Check. The ability to hold your tongue under extended duress? Well - you're working on that. But encountering the silver-tongued brother of Thor proves challenging in ways you never imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careful What You Wish For

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place during the first Avengers movie and is a headcanon I established both to satisfy some of my own questions as well as fulfilling a writing prompt.

You take a step closer and utter his name at a near whisper: “Lo-ki.”

He is dangerous, this God. No – not a god – the director has been trying to drill that into everyone. Not a god, just of another world. A world with technology far advanced of our own… and magic, yet we’ve got him locked away in this prison of glass and metal – held in place by a keypad and sequence of codes.

Loki is sitting, no longer pacing the small room. There had been ample time, apparently, between being placed in the space by Director Fury and when Agent Romanov’s brief exchange with him, to take stock of his environment. Watching him prowl around the room had been fascinating – in your monitors the room had been lit in such drastic contrast to his chilled heat signature. It was a necessary tool used to track him, they claimed. A security measure against his abilities.

Abilities? Manipulation of mind and matter.

Magic.

Concepts that up until a few years ago had seemed so foreign to you. Mr. Stark’s tech? Now that’s something you can understand. Hell, half your gear says Stark Industries on it.

The small bench that Loki occupies is the only fixture in the room, bolted to the floor for good measure. What was the wisdom of that – if the space was originally meant for Banner’s other self? But it’s not your place to judge. Just watch and report. Sound the alarm, if needed.

Seated, this God of Mischief doesn’t seem so fearsome. He is reading as though he just settled down for a quiet moment in the library. When had someone given him a book? Not while you had been on watch. Fury’s parting remark had been in jest, hadn’t it?  

When he hears his name Loki tilts his head to the side and slowly, in motions that more closely resemble a snake than a man, twists his neck to tilt his head up and look for the source. You take another daring step forward to emerge from the cusp of the entrance to the room, and his focus snaps to you.

This was a mistake. Under the directness of his gaze you feel foolish. Young. What had prompted you to come down from the safety of your viewing station and engage the fallen prince? Confidence driven by Romanov’s besting of his alleged silver tongue?

The visions. The vivid daydreams that had started moments after he had passed by your station and happened to glance your way. You had thought them the product of nerves, at first. Flashes of an up-close encounter – the result of the spike of adrenaline that had followed. Imagining yourself walking with confidence over the catwalk just as Agent Romanov had…  Everyone wants to prove themselves. It is a chance to test your worth. Perhaps even garner a reassignment – be on the detail of one of the Avengers themselves.

Loki sets aside the book, the aged cover thumping to the floor and out of view. As he stands he keeps you firmly in his sight. Watching him right himself makes you want to square your shoulders, as much good it would do you. You’re not wearing armor of leather and metal, just your SHIELD issued uniform. You are just barely able to keep from lifting your hand to touch your weapon, or the spare clip secured to your belt.

You shouldn’t step any closer. You should turn about and resume your post. Failing that, you should keep your distance from this caged trickster – but in your visions you’d walked right up without hesitation. You’d ended up close enough to reach out and touch the barrier. To do that you’ll need to make a half circuit of the room to get to the catwalk that approaches the chamber.

But this is not a vision. This is you, doing something you know to be unwise.

 _Why_ – they will surely ask, later –  _why did you descend?_

 _To investigate the presence of the book_. A lie – but what other reason can you give that won’t see you remanded to the sub-arctic?

Loki is watching you intently now - urging you onward wordlessly.

You sidestep, following the external pathway around to the monitoring station Fury had utilized. As you walk Loki follows along, turning slowly within his cell. The further away from the door – and closer to the security panel – you get, the more he smiles. It is a wholly unsettling feeling. When you pause your advance just shy of the entrance to the catwalk he leans forward to rest one arm against the invisible barrier.

“You should be elsewhere, I think.”

You turn, just a fraction, back towards the door.

“No,” he says, “Not up there, in your box not unlike mine.  _Elsewhere._ ”

Your surroundings change as you blink. The muted tones of the inside of the helicarrier are gone, replaced by a city street bustling with activity. You look for clues, something to tell you where he’s carried the pair of you. You’ll need to scramble to be able to contact the helicarrier – he’ll probably be gone in the coming instant, leaving you to find your own way home.

There is a blue sign with white text affixed to the side of the building. Too far to make out. You keep an awareness of his approximate location as you desperately hunt for something, some sort of clue as to where you now are. And then you’re able to focus enough distinguish a few of the words from the muddle of conversations surrounding you.

French. The shape of the buildings, the movement of the city starts to coalesce. Paris – he’s taken you to Paris – but something is not quite as it should be. It is the dress of those hurrying past. It is decidedly not modern. He  _hasn’t_  transported the pair of you there. Apparently there are limits to his magic. Thankfully.

You try to relax your shoulders again to prove to him that his tricks do not impress you. He’s even gone so far as to alter your clothing, as well as his, to match those of the figments giving him a wide berth – though you can still feel the reassuring weight of your firearm, the snug fit of your gear. Giving your head a sharp shake doesn’t break the hold of the figment. You take a second to try to remember exactly where you were standing on the catwalk of the helicarrier. How many paces to the railing? Stairs? To the security console?

Or the glass walls surrounding him. He isn’t leaning against it anymore.

Better just to stand where you are for the time being. You pray he is still held within his cell, that this isn’t a distraction meant to keep you occupied while he slips away.

“Your brother warned us against your trickery.”

Loki’s smile slips just a fraction at the mention of Thor.

Your heart is still thumping away within your chest, the beat pulsing in your ears as your mind tries to do battle with your eyes. You’re fairly certain what you’re seeing is false. You’re still standing on steel grating. These are not well traveled stones beneath your feet. Loki is still secure in his cell…. The cell he had swaggered into and seems completely at home in.

Why do you get the feeling he is exactly where he wants to be?

Under the sounds of the city that surrounds you, you can make out the familiar sounds of the inside of the helicarrier. The unmistakable tang to the air – the result of cycling through purifiers before being pumped throughout the giant flying machine – also helps you prove to yourself as to your whereabouts.

You’ve gathered your bearings, enough to feel confident that the security panel remains a few paces off to your left, the catwalk extending before you. Though you cannot see your true environment you take a step, hoping your faith in your memory is not misplaced.

“A warning clearly unheeded.” You take a breath to protest but before you can voice a sound he continues, “Tasked to guard. Yet here you stand, for all the monitors to see.” He turns to once again glance at the camera mounted in the ceiling – just one of many that have been tracking his movements. “What will your commander say? What reason will you give for abandoning your post?”

You bristle. His words echo the worries that, though voiced internally, haven’t stalled your movements in the slightest. “You don’t know me.”

His eyes flit over your, his show of taking stock of the human standing before him. He seems delight in this little stand you’re making, in your defiance. “Middle child in a brood. Always trailing along behind the rest. And this –” he waves his hand out to indicate your current location, “an extension of efforts to stand out among the rest.”

Eldest actually, leading by example for the benefit of your younger brother. But you’ve no intention of admitting that. “You had a book.” Can two even be considered a brood?

You sidestep to stand next to an aging lamppost, the light flickering to life as the sun begins to set in this magicked world Loki has cast. The railing to the catwalk should be approximately in the same location. If you were to try to step a foot further you would run into it – you hope. That would be a nasty way to go. A long drop and a sudden stop.

Loki turns 90 degrees on his heel, holding his hands out palms up as he shifts his weight back and forth. Motioning to the sidewalk surrounding him he doesn’t move his eyes from you as he speaks his taunted reply. “Book?”

He is suggesting the book is another thing fabricated into being. You’d  _seen_ it there on the monitors – _heard_  the THUNK as it hit the floor when he dropped it upon your approach. Now it is hidden beneath this layer of France-gone-by. You glare at him in his outfit of charcoal, green, and grey. If you focus hard enough you imagine you can just make out the tarnish of metal beneath the mirage. Or maybe he’s playing more tricks.

“It’s probably just at your feet. Hidden beneath – this.” You lift your attention from him deliberately. Though it sounds all sorts of alarm bells within your head as you do so, you half turn your body to study the Paris street scene more thoroughly. In truth it is impressively constructed. You can feel the breeze of the others as they walk past. If you were to reach out you might feel the brush of fabric against your fingertips.

Instead of relaying all that to him, you press your lips together and pull the edge of your mouth to the side. It’s an expression of boredom rather than fascination…. You hope. When you look back Loki has taken a step to draw closer. That should put him right at the glass barrier. He can move no further, but you – you still have a few paces before you’ll be standing just before him – before you’ll be standing just on the other side of his glass prison.

“She sneers, and yet can do no better.”  

Furthering his anger wasn’t part of the plan. Was there a plan? Maybe. Maybe not… but after Thor gets everything sorted with Director Fury you really don’t want this God of Mischief to have a standing disagreement with you. It’s curious that your words have any effect on him at all. You are, after all, a mere human. But then he is known to enjoy words – words and lies. Another warning from his brother.

You take a half-step forward. Each movement you’ve made takes you closer to your earlier vision of standing just opposite the glass from him. Was that your endgame? Achieving the day-dream?  _Then_ what… “Why Paris?”

“Why not?”

“Why this dated version?” Again you make a show of looking away from him, even as you take another step towards where he stands. As you pass by the open doorway of a pâtisserie you imagine you can even smell the scent of bread and sweets on the air. But you  _are_  still on the helicarrier. You _are._ “Have you been here before, on Earth? Am I glimpsing a memory?” You prompt him, despite the risks, “In a fit of boredom an Asgardian prince comes to Earth – you call it Midgard, right – to play with some living toys before getting bored and tossing them aside?”

He doesn’t move, just stands there and smiles at you – showing more teeth than necessary.

“How many did you kill that time, Loki? We’ll have to adjust the estimates for how many lives you’ve taken – how many innocent souls you now owe a debt…”

He scoffs at your word choice. “Innocent. How many innocents exist among you? How many have  _you_ killed, on orders? With that weapon that you’ve yet to draw… Or do you even have that in you?” He tips his foot forward to be able to lean for emphasis. Apparently he had a few inches left between his position and the barrier. You mentally readjust your estimations.

“I follow orders.”

Loki chuckles, “Even orders misgiven. Given by those misinformed. And you, not at your post as you should be. Oh yes, you follow orders. Or maybe these  _were_  your orders. Childish attempts to glean further knowledge – this, the start of my torture – a torture of words meant to occupy me while my brother and the others scramble to stall the inevitable outcome.” His mouth twitches as he tilts his head down to look at you at a slant, “You’ll have to try harder, Midgardian.”

That’s right. Through the monitors you’d heard his admission with your own ears, confirmed by Agent Romanov. Loki was trying to force Banner into becoming the other thing… and while his cage is currently occupied what defense does the helicarrier have? Fury has no intention of moving Loki now that he has him contained. But helping to guard the doctor – or take him down – was not your task.

Neither was standing here talking to the prisoner. You need something to show for it. Something to offer up and hopefully prevent your reassignment for your breach of protocol.

You want to edge closer still, but that will take you to the point of matching the positioning in your visions. What then, what then? “And if I’m here for other reasons?”

“ _Then you’ll have to try harder_.” He repeats. He is calling your bluff, a bluff of a human’s ability to do him any physical harm. He seems to read your desire to take the last step to close the last bit of distance, or at least your hesitance. “Boasting. And yet you doubt your footing.”

You can’t leave his challenge unmet. You step forward with as much confidence as you can muster. As you move he reaches out, snaring your forearm just above the wrist before you can move to draw your weapon.

No! Impossible!

He’s out.

He snags your other wrist as you reach to call out an alert over your comm. Can any of your training save you now? Can you break his hold – this master of trickery? Snaking you to him, he holds you tight against his armor, wrapping one arm firmly around you to free up a hand to pull your weapon free of its holster and sent it spinning down the cobble street. The dated passersby seem none-the-wiser to your predicament.

“No!” You grunt, struggling against the bite of his woven leather armor digging into your back and hips.

“This is why you world will fall. So easily goaded.” Loki rasps in your ear as you fight against him. You manage to turn your wrists within his hold, but don’t manage much more movement than that before he pulls a knife and has it pressed into your throat.

“No!” You whisper, leaning into his shoulder, twisting yourself to pull your neck away from the blade as much as you can manage. “We searched you!”

Loki just laughs. Laughs at your protests. Laughs at your attempts to reestablish control of the moment. Laughs at your struggles against his hold on your body, his arm wrapped around you in a reverse hug that threatens to crush you. Is he human-like enough to have the same weak points on his body? Are those points protected by the armor he still wears? You can hear the shifting leather, feel the cold bits of metals against the bare skin of your arms – though if you believe your eyes he wears a simple suit.

You brace and twist, trying to use your size to your advantage. It nets you just enough slippage within his one arm grasp to force him to loosen his hold to readjust. Your panic has held just enough sporadic movement for you to be able to free yourself from his hold. You need to get your feet under you once more, prepare for any further sparring or surprises. You try to take a step away from him – and slam right into an invisible barrier in your attempt to escape.

His cell. The barrier to his cell. You blink and take gasping breaths as the knife wielding form shimmers and falls away, revealing Loki standing a few feet behind. He is still locked away. You were grappling with a figment.

A very realistic figment.

Yet another something that you’ll have to explain away when it is time to debrief. How the hell are you going to explain what the monitors are currently picking up?  _What_  are they currently picking up?

“Fuck!” You exhale the curse, breathing hard. Immediately your hand goes to your belt. Your sidearm still sits in its holster.  _That_  had been a figment, too? The horror of having him so easily disarm you and toss your weapon aside? But you’d felt the snap disengage, the weight of the thing being lifted from the holster!

You’re going to need years of therapy after this. Why hadn’t you just stayed at your post?

You should call in. But if you do, what would you report? That you abandoned your post to come down and have a chat – then allowed yourself to get caught up in the web of lies woven during a drawn out exchange that you shouldn’t have been having in the first place? Maybe just – maybe just page in and record unusual movement from within Loki’s cell… That you are heading down to investigate.

Loki just grins at you, smiling as you pant to try to regain your breath. You’ve been interacting with a projection of him since – when? Since he first created the faux-France environment? Before even that?

“No call for backup, still. Determined to prove something. To yourself? Or to others?” He takes a step back towards the center of the space. “I like this. Come. See if you can break my hold, again.”

“Bite me,” you spit back, still trying to compose yourself. “I’m not here for your entertainment.”

He shifts and tilts his head, looking back at the monitor mounted to the ceiling for a long moment. “Yet you’ve helped to distract. When I reclaim my scepter…” He lets the sentence trail off.

He said  _when_ , not  _if_. He’s confident that he will escape this cell, and somehow reclaim the thing now contained a few floors removed from his current location.

He levels his gaze to you again, “In the coming days, try not to be squashed like the rest of those resisting. I’d very much enjoy your reaction to seeing  _real power_  in action. Or better yet, further shirk your orders and  **be mine**. You’ll have a front row seat.”

You balk at him, “Your brother and the others will…”

“My  _brother_ ,” he bites out, “is a fool.” 

Clearly there is a rivalry there between Loki and Thor that extends beyond that which exists between most siblings.

Standing before him now, still seeing the faux street, there is no room for hesitation. He’ll smell your fear, at this distance he’ll see the change in your pupils, and use it to his advantage. Something within you whispers:  _Caution_.  _Dangerous._  You elect to ignore the whispered words. You keep your shoulders pulled back, your feet square beneath you. “He’s not the one in a cell.”

This prompts another wicked grin to play across Loki’s face. “A problem I mean to solve.”

His growled words makes your pulse quicken. Again you hear the whispered words of warning. _Dangerous. Caution._

You aim to keep your voice level as you reply, tucking your hands behind your back in a loose grip. You’ve almost gathered yourself back together. “I’m not letting you out.”

“What makes you think I was referring to you?”

You spin in reaction to Loki’s pointed gaze over your shoulder, one of the crowd approaching you faster than you can react. A man not dressed as the others - a man decked in garb similar to yours - underneath Loki’s enchantment. 

Your firearm is still holstered when Barton strikes you down.


End file.
